Three years after his death, the stretch of road in front of a Douglaston church has been renamed for a pastor who one could say already had a claim to it.

Some 200 people turned out on a cold Sunday afternoon to see the part of 245th Street between Northern and Alameda boulevards renamed Fr. John J. Gribbon Way in honor of the longest−serving priest in the parish’s history.

“I never in all of those years ... heard him say anything derogatory about anybody,” he said. “In one year, he won $10,000 and gave it all to the school. ... When he died, there was nothing he had not given away.”

“He gave me strength,” said Lucy Mahulka, principal of the church’s school, recalling how warmly Gribbon welcomed her in during her job interview. “I was honored to know him.”

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